A newsletter, again?
Hi!
If you know me, chances are it’s from my coverage of the edtech industry while I was at EdSurge. To those who don’t, that was my last job for nearly a decade, before I joined Reach Capital to lead content operations and immerse myself into the investing world.
I’ve been wanting to write more regularly. But raising our first child, who just turned 1, has sapped more energy and time than I’d anticipated. (Why didn’t anyone tell me??) It’s been hard at times to focus, let alone string coherent sentences together. Yet writing is my masochistic guilty pleasure, and, like a muscle, it atrophies when unused for long.
That brings us to this. I used to publish newsletters every week for 10 years, so this is the devil I know best. I don’t have a calendar of things to write about and can’t commit to any frequency, but expect a potpourri of musings about parenting, investing, education and workforce trends, and perhaps (by popular demand) some twist on the EdSurge business newsletter that was my baby before we had a baby.
And did I say ranting? Nothing gets the juices flowing than seething at seemingly petty things. It’s not the ideal way to kick off a new newsletter. But it’s what’s getting me to hit publish.
Cheers,
tw
If quiet quitting isn’t about quitting, why call it that?
It’s a lazy, misleading and irresponsible term. The sooner we stop using it, the better.
The first rule of “quiet quitting” is that no one is actually quitting. Which makes it terribly confusing.
When I first saw the term in headlines, what came to mind were people sneakily shirking away from their work responsibilities. People logging into Zoom meetings but not participating or mentally present. Salespeople not making sales calls. Phoning it in and not getting the job done. All things that remote work makes easier to get away with, and stories that we’ve all heard about or experienced.
But as I read more about this so-called phenomenon from reputable sources, the definition seems drastically different:
CBS: “What everyone can agree on is that the term doesn’t mean that an employee has quit, but rather that they are setting boundaries at work and refusing to go above and beyond in completing their duties.”
Gallup: “...the idea spreading virally on social media that millions of people are not going above and beyond at work and just meeting their job description.”
World Economic Forum: “Quiet quitting doesn’t mean actually quitting your job. It just means doing what’s required and then getting on with your life – having more work-life balance. ‘You’re still performing your duties but you're no longer subscribing to the hustle culture mentality that work has to be your life.’”
Wait. Is there something wrong with that?
Doing the job as described and nothing more is nothing to write home or on LinkedIn about. But assuming the work gets done, I don’t see any violation with the social/labor contract that constitutes a job. If this is what “quiet quitting” means, then how do we describe people who are actually pulling a Ferris Bueller at work?
I find the dissonance between what “quiet quitting” evokes, and how it is defined, appalling and irresponsible. The whole thing feels like:
a tone-deaf attempt to describe, with dramatic flair, what is essentially people who are disengaged with work
some TikTok trend taken out of context by old-school media trying to stay on top of what’s “cool.”
a nefarious PR campaign launched by companies struggling with culture and morale issues but who want to cast the blame on others.
all of the above
What seems to be the bigger issue is the pervasive problem of employee disengagement and a call for managers and companies to create a healthier work environment. As Gallup and other surveys show, workers are feeling increasingly burnt out, stressed and disconnected. It’s a major problem that doesn’t need rehashing. Creating a strong, supportive team culture is among the top priorities for the founders we work with. It’s an essential foundation for the longevity and wellbeing of the individual, and of the company.
Words matter. The media hoopla over “quiet quitting” is an unfair, problematic framing that casts the spotlight on workers who are presumably “quitters” for just doing their jobs. (And no one likes a quitter.) Little wonder, then, that there is a growing backlash against the term, which is unnecessarily widening the wedge between workers and employers.
Perhaps I may be quibbling about semantics a bit much. But if “quiet quitting” isn’t really about quitting, then why call it that?